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Circe
}} Circe is a grecian sorceress and self-professed arch-nemesis of Wonder Woman. Considering herself to be an Olympian goddess, Circe believes power belongs to those who can wield it and her hatred towards men and the world stems from an immortal lifetime of betrayals and rejections from those she loved. Jaded and cynical over the notion of equality, Circe is a creature of lies and deceit who believes magic will one day rule all of reality and leads her army of vicious Bestiamorphs against any who defy her might. Background In the age of mythology, Circe was believed to have been born the daughter of the sun god and the Oceanid , however, her real mother was actually the goddess Hecate who, possibly as part of a plan to create powerful children in the mortal world, took on the guise of Perseis to sleep with Perseis' husband, Helios. Impregnated with Helios' seeds, Hecate gave birth to Aeëtes, Pasiphaë and Circe. Becoming a princess of Colchis, Circe was exiled from the kingdom after killing her husband, the prince of Colchis. Finding refuge on island of Aeaea, Circe took to using magic and potions to avenge herself. Unfortunately, her power could not extend beyond the island and so she used the Sirens to lure seafarers to her, whereupon she would subject them to various nightmares before killing them. Her desire for vengeance unquenched, Circe desired more power so that she could affect that which was beyond the island and she traded her soul with the Greek goddess of sorcery, Hecate, who also wished to avenge herself upon humanity for worshipping the Greecian gods. Now bestowed with immortality, eternal beauty and the incredible power of a god, Circe first used her new-found power to destroy Colchis before turning to use her influence in fanning mistrust between the men and women of Greece to appease Hecate's wishes. Building a palace in a forest dell on the island, amongst her attendants at the time were Nereids and Nymphs, who were tasked with sorting out the plants and flowers of Circe's herbarium while she herself tended to her favourite occupation of weaving dazzling fabrics. When the sea-god asked Circe for a potion which would make the beautiful nymph Scylla fall in love with him. Circe, however, loved Glaucus for herself, so, when he scorned her, she gave him a potion which turned Scylla into the hideous sailor-preying monster Odysseus and his crew had to evade soon after leaving Circe’s island. One day, while Circe was gathering herbs, she met and fell in love with Picus, a son of Cronos. While Circe loved him, Picus was in love with Canens, daughter of Janus, and refused her. Scorned once again, Circe turned the demigod into a woodpecker and further populated the island with the transformed forms of many of Picus' friends who came to query her of Picus' whereabouts. When the god Dionysus happened upon Circe during a celebration she was attending, he became enthralled with the sorceress and desired to sleep with her. Bemused, she attempted to turn him into a beast as she did to all men and women who attempted to have their way her, however, each time her powers transformed him, Dionysus transformed himself back to his humane form. While initially annoyed by this, when Dionysus played her attempts to transform him off as a game, her irritation turned to amusement and mirth and she spent the majority of the rest of the celebration turning him into various animals and beasts as a running joke between the two until the late night festivities turned carnal and she good heartedly relented to the god's desires to mate with her; mirthfully transforming him again and again as he fornicated with her throughout the night. Taking Dionysus' Seeds of Creation many times while he was in many forms, Circe gave birth to ; the god of festivity, revels and nocturnal dalliances. A god of comedy, jokes, revelry and festive excess, Comus represented festive anarchy and chaos and became a cup-bearer of his father's. He also inherited his mother’s talent for brewing and sorcery and once invented a magic potion which gave anyone who tasted it the head of a beast. During their travels, (daughter of Circe's brother, Aeetes) and of the Argonauts stopped on her aunt Circe's island so that she could be cleansed after the murder of her brother, relieving her of blame for the deed. Following the Trojan War, Odysseus and his crew landed on Aeaea after barely escaping the Cyclops Polyphemus and the cannibal Laestrygonians. After resting on the beach for three days, Odysseus, who had seen a wisp of smoke in the distance, sent Eurylochus with twenty two men to explore the terrain. When Eurylochus' party found Circe's house, the sorceress invited them to enter and all of them followed her except for Eurylochus, who suspected a trap. Circe treated the men that followed her with a mixture of cheese, barley meal, and honey flavoured with Pramnian wine, all of which she drugged to make them forgetful of their native land before turning them into beasts. Discovering this, Eurylochus reported to Odysseus and Odysseus decided to go to confront the sorceress. On his way to her home, Odysseus was met by the god of messengers, Hermes, who gave him a fig of moly to ward off Circe's powers and also advised him in interacting with her. With her powers rendered ineffective against the moly Odysseus wore, Circe relented her aggression and gradually learned to trust the hero; changing the men she had transformed back to human form. Charmed by the hospitality of the sorceress, Odysseus and his men stayed with her for a whole year; during which time Circe successfully seduces Odysseus into becoming her lover and through multiple incidents of passion gives birth to four children; , , Cassiphone and ; all of whom were presumably raised on the island. After Odysseus became restless to go back to Ithaca and his mortal wife, Penelope and he asks for Circe's help in returning home; whereupon she instructed him to journey to Hades to consult the seer Tiresias. Following their return, Circe alerted Odysseus of the various dangers of the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, all of whom he would encounter on his way home. As Odysseus departed, he left a scornful Circe with their children. Some years later, their son, Telegonus, traveled to Ithaca to seek his father but ended up killing him by accident with a poisoned spear given to him by his mother. As Telegonus brought Odysseus's body back to Aeaea, he was accompanied by Odysseus's widow, Penelope, and her son, Telemachus. Circe made them all immortal and, on Athena's decree, married herself and her daughter, Cassiphone, to Telemachus, as Telegonus became married to his step-mother, Penelope. Sharing her bed with her daughter and step-son and mating with both of them on several occasions, Circe took her step-son's young Seeds of Life into her womb and became pregnant with a son, , as Cassiphone also received her half-brother's seeds and became pregnant with a daughter, . Penelope and Telegonus would also end up sleeping together despite him being old enough to be her son and being responsible for her beloved husband's death, and Telegonus became the father of . Some time later, Telemachus had a quarrel with Circe and apparently killed her; Cassiphone then killed Telemachus to avenge her mother's death and presumably left the island with the other surviving members of the family. However, Circe survived her "death" by her step-son/husband's hand (whether it was a ploy performed by her or she was healed/resurrected is unclear) and some time during the rise of Rome, the god Poseidon had observed Circe alone on her island and approached her with the desire to mate with her. Consenting to the desirable notion of lying with a god as powerful as Poseidon and being impregnated by him, Circe received Poseidon's Seeds of Creation and gave birth to the satyr-god , who would become worshipped in Rome as the Roman equivalent of . As the centuries passed, Circe remained on Aeaea but eventually assumed the persona of "Cassandra Colchis" to ward off unwanted attention and had begun to extend her reach to the surrounding Ionian islands, coming to be loyally served by the bestiamorph, Mikos, as her enforcer. While observing the public arrival of the Themysciran princess, Diana, as the hero "Wonder Woman", Circe became concerned that the Amazon may be the one prophesied to take her powers from her and, when the princess came to Greece to visit the ancient Grecian temples and arrived on the Ionian island Cephalonia, she captured the Amazon and brought her to Aeaea in an attempt to kill her only to be thwarted by Vanessa Kapatelis leading a group of rebels from Cephalonia and Hermes' intervention. After aiding her gods in ascending to create a new Mount Olympus, Diana comes to the idea that perhaps the world would be more open to her message if they knew how the Amazons lived and encourages her sisters to open their island to a select group of dignitaries from the United Nations before later conducting their own tour of the United States. However, the Amazons are framed for a series of murders and thefts during their stay in Gotham City as orchestrated by Circe as part of her plan to unbalance potential threats in her plan to fulfill the witch-god Hecate's vengeance against the Greek gods by instigating a war amongst the various heavenly pantheons. While she manages to destroy the Amazons' intended "tour of peace", coerce the pantheons into fighting each other (whereby the Roman Gods pit their champion, Shazam, against the Greek pantheon's champion, Diana), brainwash Hippolyta as serving as the Amazons of Bana-Mighdall's new Shim'tar, and temporarily killing Diana by reverting her back into the clay from which she was created, Circe's plan was ultimately thwarted when Superman martialed the world's heroes against her and the Phantom Stranger, the Spectre, and Deadman resurrected Diana. Taking advantage of Diana's absence from Earth when she was enslaved by the spacefaring Sangtree Empire. Circe teleported Paradise Island into a demon realm before seemingly perishing. However, in actuality, Circe had transformed herself into a human called "Donna Milton"; wiping her own memory in the process. Placing herself as the cold-blooded Assistant District Attorney to the corrupt District Attorney of Boston, Donna opted to become the attorney and lover of arms supplier Ari Buchanan, who had became empowered as an avatar of the war god Ares. Donna befriended Diana as part of a plan by Ari to kill the hero, however, by the time the trap came to be sprung Donna; having witnessed Diana help her fellow coworkers with child support debts and having helped the hero herself by threatening Maxwell Lord to release Diana's JLI pay from bureaucratic limbo, could not let Ari kill the woman she had come to see as a friend. Attempting to stop Ari, even while pregnant with his daughter, Donna was shot by the gun that Ari had intended to use on Diana. Thought dead, Donna managed to set off one of Ari's black hole emitters that both killed him and destroyed the building around them; setting the women free in the river below and causing Donna to go into labor and give birth to her daughter, Lyta Milton. Became Diana's lawyer at her and Micah Rains' new detective agency, when the Amazon Artemis single-handedly battles the White Magician as the new Wonder Woman, Diana realizes that Donna is actually Circe and begged her to help transport her to Artemis' side. Not believing Diana and hurt that her friend would think her to be a villain, Donna yelled at Diana to leave and subconsciously teleported Diana to Artemis. Shocked, Donna's memories slowly begin coming back to her and she teleports herself to Diana in order to help her in her battle. While weak due to not being fully in control of her power, Donna used what she could of her power to save Diana by teleporting herself, a demonically-altered Cheetah, and Cassandra Arnold; a television reporter and the White Magician's lover, away from the battle. Her Donna Milton persona gone, during the Underworld Unleashed incident, Circe made a deal with the demon-lord Neron to sell her soul in exchange for more magical power, but managed to keep her soul by planning with other villains who made deals with Neron to destroy the soul jar which contained their souls. She later formed part of the Injustice Gang gathered by Lex Luthor in response to the reformation of the Justice League of America. Alongside the Joker, Doctor Light, and the Ocean Master she fought the JLA while onboard a satellite base but she became preoccupied with Plastic Man, whose shapeshifting powers allowed him to immediately change out of the animal forms she turned him into. She later proposed both a business and romantic relationship with Luthor following his election as the President of the United States of America, which he immediately shot down. Shortly before Imperiex assaulted the Earth, Circe struck at Diana through her friends. She allied herself with Sebastian Ballesteros, who had usurped the power of the Cheetah from Barbara Ann Minerva and turned Diana's friend Vanessa Kapatelis into the new Silver Swan. Ballestros also became Circe's lover. She reveals herself after Vanessa attacks Wonder Girl, luring Diana into battle. After Hippolyta dies saving Diana from an Imperiex probe, Circe launches a mass attack on New York City, teleporting and transforming all male superheroes into animals save for J'onn J'onzz, Beast Boy, and Plastic Man, whom she took special means to keep imprisoned due to their shape-shifting abilities. She also imprisoned and transformed her former confederates in the Injustice Gang, taking particular delight in tormenting Luthor. Since the only persons who were not affected by the spell were women, many female superheroes entered the city in an attempt to save their friends and stop the witch's plan. However, Circe had planned for such a rescue and convinced the female members of various supervillain communities to join forces and stop the heroes by any means necessary. As Diana was leading the fight against Circe, Circe sent a Doomsday-altered Superman to fight her; hoping to demoralize the world by making Superman and Wonder Woman kill one another, while she transmitted the fight in a global simulcast across the world. Ultimately, Circe was unsuccessful in her plan as a majority of the female heroes were able to change back their male friends with the use of the herb moly to disrupt her powers much like Odysseus had done. After a protracted fight, Diana broke Circe's spell on Superman with her lasso. Luthor and the Joker managed to free themselves and threaten Circe's daughter, however, she was able to quickly overpowered them and escaped with her allies. Circe continued to harass Diana and Donna Troy, appearing in their dreams as a dying Hippolyta until Diana tracked Circe to the Parthenon, where they fought in single combat, again on a global simulcast. Circe had cast spells on herself to make her Diana's physical equal, but ultimately she was defeated. During the fight, she claimed her hatred of Diana was fueled by the hypocrisy and naivete she perceived in Diana's beliefs in a better world. She attempted to goad Diana into killing her, but Diana spared her and imprisoned her surrounded by moly on Reformation Island of New Themyscira while her daughter was brought to live with the Amazons on the main island. When Hera destroyed New Themyscira in her anger over Zeus spying on Artemis as she bathed, Circe was rescued by the two Gorgon sisters Stheno and Euryale who sought her to revive their sister, Medusa. Shortly after Medusa's defeat at Diana's hands, Circe's daughter was kidnapped by her father, Ares, while under the protection of the Amazons. Confronting Ares, Circe was informed of the coming Infinite Crisis and that the time of the gods was at a crossroads. Choosing to join the gods in retreating from the world to avoid the conflict, Circe joined Ares and her daughter in the celestial realms. One year after the Infinite Crisis, Ares takes Lyta away from Circe to serve his own ends and Circe returns from the celestial realms with Hercules and increases the powers of some of Diana's primary adversaries in a bid to lure the hero out of temporary retirement. Manipulating Hercules into luring Diana into a trap on Aeaea, Circe stole Diana's powers, explaining her rationale for doing so was to avenge wronged women whom she believed Diana had no real interest in helping. Reaffirming her role as a public hero, Diana eventually regained her powers from Circe, however, the sorceress' mechanicians continued; giving the shape changing cannibal Everyman his shapeshifting powers back in order to replace Sarge Steel at the Department of Metahuman Affairs and teleporting to Themyscira to resurrect Hippolyta and instigate the Amazonian attack on Washington, D.C. Once Hippolyta discovered that part of Circe's plans involved guiding an American nuclear missile, fired in retaliation for their attack, to destroy Themyscira, she threw a spear into Circe's chest, critically wounding her. Reappearing at the end of the incident alive and well, Circe exclaimed that she had wanted the Amazons and Diana to dishonour and dirty themselves in the very war and conflict that they claimed to detest to punish the Olympian Gods for allowing Ares to steal her daughter from her. Cynical and vindictive, Circe continues to live her life on the island of Aeaea, always ready to enact schemes to further her own goals of magic and power. Combat Statistics *Circe (Chinatown Cafe) *Circe (Condemned Shipping Office) *Circe (Shadowlands) *Circe (Themyscira: Gates of Tartarus) *Circe (Legends PvP) Involvement *New players can select a pre-made character template inspired by Circe. *Circe is a playable character for Legends PvP and Legends PvE. *Circe is a playable character in the 1 player anomaly available from the Amazon Fury Part I episode. Heroes *Players learn that Circe is in cahoots with Giganta in order to prepare a spell that would transfer the mind of Giganta into Wonder Girl. *Circe uses her magic to pose as Queen Mera of Atlantis. With Aquaman and the warriors of Atlantis under her control, they begin attacking the streets of Metropolis. As a hero character, you will be tasked with learning what has provoked this attack, and with the assistance of Martian Manhunter, battle Circe to release Aquaman from her control. *At Level 15, Wonder Woman will call on Magic heroes to help her drive off Circe and her Bestiamorphs who are trying to steal magic based exobytes for their own purposes. Circe will turn the hero into a Bestiamorph Berserker in an attempt to turn them against Wonder Woman. In retaliation, Wonder Woman will stop the player from being under Circe's control and the heroes will have to stop the the Beastiamorphs from stealing the exobytes while Circe fights Wonder Woman. After the heroes stop the Beastiamorphs, they will team up with Wonder Woman against Circe. Villains *When the players choose the Villainous Magic character in their Character Creation, they will apprentice with Circe and get missions from her. *At Level 3, Circe will first order villains to cast punishing spells to Vanguards and steal 20 of the spell books of several heroes. *At Level 4, Circe will send you to corrupt the souls of the pure-hearted citizens and punish the arrogant citizens. *Circe will send you to the battlefield to assist her Bestiamorphs and Giganta in fighting the Amazon warriors that are trying to rescue Wonder Girl from the power transfer ritual Giganta is performing to finally obtain the powers of an Amazon. *At Level 15, she will call on Magic villains to help her drive off Wonder Woman and the Amazons trying to recover the magic-based exobytes she's collected. *At Level 30, Circe will call villains to help save the magical planes from Brainiac. In the Shadowlands, after helping you drive off Brainiac's forces with Wonder Woman, Circe will turn on her, only to be trapped by her Lasso. Villains will have to defeat Wonder Woman and free Circe. After Wonder Woman is defeated and Circe is freed, Circe will be threatened by the villain, who will trap her in the Shadowlands unless she recognizes you as more than a tool and offers you great power. Associated Equipment *Vengeance of Hecate Style *Ancient Divine Sorceress Style *Tiki of the Witch *Cloak of Lies Trivia *Circe first appeared in Wonder Woman #17 (June 1988) *Circe is voiced by Michelle Forbes. *Circe's powers can be warded by the herb . *Due to his powers, Plastic Man is able to warp himself back from whichever animal form Circe turns him into. Due to her lover, the god Dionysus, also demonstrating a similar resistance to her magics, she has dubbed the hero "Dionysus". *One year after the Infinite Crisis, Circe captured and took the powers of Wonder Woman, Donna Troy and Wonder Girl to become Wonder Woman herself; during her brief tenor she hunted down and infiltrated various trafficking rings and freed over 2,000 women on three different continents, murdering any men that stood in her way. *It is stated that Circe has a taste for bestiality (much like her sister, Pasiphaë, whom conceived Asterios after mating with the Cretan Bull) and that she indulges herself with her bestiamorph servants just as much as her human slaves. While indeed being entertained by the various shapes and sizes that their bodies offer, allowing for a lot of variability in the bedroom, she enjoys sleeping with her beasts and bestiamorphs as she delights in their honest, animalistic natures; something that humans constantly try to hide and deny through lies and deceit. *Circe's current daughter, Hippolyta "Lyta" Milton, is the only person that she genuinely cares about. So much so that she goes out of her way to keep Lyta away from her villainous activities. *While not enacting schemes of vengeance, Circe enjoys tending to her herbarium and weaving dazzling fabrics to wear as new costumes in her villainous outings. *Circe possesses a magical mirror, often referred to as "the Mirror of Circe", that allows anyone holding it to alter their features into that of another. It is considered a forbidden object by the Olympian gods but has been stolen several times and used by Hercules. Gallery File:DC_ren_icnChar_Circe_multi.jpg|Rendered Poses File:WPCirce.jpg File:FutureCirceConcept.jpg|Future Circe concept File:FutureCirceConcept2.jpg|Future Circe concept File:Circe2.png File:CirceHall.JPG File:Screen18.png File:CirceComm(Old).png File:CirceComm.png File:Circe_using_her_Magic.jpg File:Talk Screen - Circe.png Circe Gallery Page See also * Aeaea * Bestiamorph Army * Secret Society of Super-Villains External links * Wikipedia * DC Database Category:Villains Category:Society Category:Wonder Woman Enemies Category:Magic Category:Female Category:Sorcery powers Category:Circe